BrandPosts are written and edited by members of our sponsor community. BrandPosts create an opportunity for an individual sponsor to provide insight and commentary from their point-of-view directly to PCWorld's audience. The PCWorld editorial team does not participate in the writing or editing of BrandPosts.

"It's easy to forget that the vast majority of Windows 8 licenses Microsoft sells isn't direct to consumers. It's to Lenovo, HP, Dell, and all of its other hardware partners, who then go on to sell (or not sell) those devices to real human people. So how copies of Windows 8 are on family room desks, and how many are collecting dust on a Best Buy back shelf?"

Barrett also suggests that Microsoft undoubtedly moved a lot of licenses by offering a historically low upgrade price of $40, which encouraged many users to buy the OS sight-unseen, or at least mouse-unused. Whether or not Windows 8 will continue to sell well after the price goes up (starting in February) remains to be seen.

It's worth noting that regardless of operating system, mobile workers continue to rely on remote access software for everything from retrieving files to running programs not currently available on their laptops or tablets.

Indeed, Windows 8 has drawn some criticism for both its lack of apps and its unintuitive Desktop mode, which lacks a Start button and therefore makes legacy software more difficult to access. With a tool like LogMeIn Free, users can connect to their office PCs to run older programs and/or bypass Windows 8 altogether.